Nov
2012
20

Tommy GonzalezCity of Irving city manager and member of La Cima Club's Board of Governors

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, The Malcolm Balridge National Quality Award is the highest level of performance excellence recognition an organization can receive in the United States.

Irving City Manager Tommy Gonzalez has been a Member of La Cima Club in Irving for more than six years and has been on the Board of Governors for two years.Originally from West Texas, Tommy brought more than 20 years of managing experience to The City of Irving when he started working there six years ago.

What clinched the prestigious award was the total transformation of both the quality of life in the city and the way it was run. Incredibly, in just a few short years, Irving reached a plateau that the vast majority of cities never reach.

According to the NIST, the City of Irving is one of five cities in Texas and 89 cities nationwide that holds an AAA rating from both Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s. In addition, Irving has maintained these ratings continuously since 2007, throughout the worst recession in our nation’s history.

In a survey that rated many key service departments, including the police, code enforcement, libraries and recreation, the number of city residents who rated the city as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ has increased by double digits since 2006.The rating for overall quality of service in the city of Irving is 74%. This is significantly higher than the rating for the state of Texas (46%), and almost double the rating for the United States Government (38%).

Additionally, the city’s crime rate dropped considerably during the past six years. According to the NIST, overall crime per 1,000 city residents has decreased a noticeable 35.5% since 2006.

“[The application process] was a very rigorous review of our operations, things we've been working on for the last six years,” said Tommy. “These kinds of things do not make [Irving] recession-proof but they do show that these are sound practices.”

Winning the award goes to show how hard work and dedication behind the scenes can really begin to show in the the long run.Instead of just making these changes into goals, Tommy and the rest of his dedicated staff made them into a reality.Congratulations and keep up the good work!